Culture on Romantic relationships

Individualist societies focus on individual goals and values, their relationships are built around love, they are entirely voluntary and they are mostly temporary.

Collectivist societies focus less on love and more on family values, their relationships are often arranged or involuntary and they are permanent.

+Madathil and Benshoff Questioned about importance of love, values and finances in relationships to Americans in free choice marriages (Culture consistent), Indians in arranged marriages in India (culture consistent) and in America (Culture inconsistent)

Supports theory as it shows importance of finance and shared values being more in collectivist culture however the second finding contradicts the theory as a collectivist marriage group rated love highest.

X - Chinese who go to university in Australia are more independent - not representing collectivist society

+Le Vine et al asked participants across cultures the question 'If someone had all of the qualities you desired in marriage, would you marry them without love?'

They found that more answered yes in collectivist societies than in individualist societies. For example, India 43% and UK 7.3%

This shows how love is a much more important feature of relationships in individualist societies.

X - Sample bias as all were undergraduates who will be less focused on marriage. X - Only one question

+Moore and Leung at an Australian university they gave questionnaries about relationships and love to anglo-Australian students and Chinese students

61% of anglo-australian students were in relationships whereas only 38% of Chinese student were in relationships

This shows how western individualist countries are more interested in temporary relationships